Monday, February 26, 2007

Finale of Life is where Love is

So, today is the finale of my WCN piece Life is where Love is. This was a very special piece for me. Throughout high school, I had been working on a massive cyberpunk "maxi-series" that was somewhat more in the vien of traditional mainstream comics. (and when I say massive, I'm not kidding: In three years I had plotted all 50 issues, did thumbnails for 30, and fully finished 7, with each issue at 25 pages).

Then along came a crazy experience that led to writing this piece, which fully defied what I'd worked on before. While drawing it, I began to realize it was essentially a "narrative essay" in visual form. There's an introduction, body, and conclusion to it. My whole perspective on comics changed. Out was my traditional sense of narrative and structure, in was... something different.

It led to my other artsy/poetic/experimental works, which in turn led to more formalism. The piece was made even more special when my friend did something totally unheard of and turned it into a ballet at Cal Arts — using the comic as the script (which I'm still perplexed about).

So, in many ways this piece directly led to where I'm at now: figuring out ways to measure people's brainwaves when reading comics.

Relatedly, I think this is going to be the last Meditations post for awhile. With classes weighing down on me, my head is in other places and I've lost the drive to consistently post. I'll resume again eventually I'm sure... but for now, enjoy this one in full.